Shore Lore: A day for CQD Binns

By Don Wilding

Friday

Apr 28, 2017 at 3:01 AM

During the weeks and months that followed the collision of the ocean liners Republic and Florida in 1909, Marconi operator Jack Binns was the toast of the maritime world and an American hero. The 26-year-old Binns stayed at his post and miraculously relayed his messages for help, managing to save all 1,500 souls aboard the sinking vessel just off Nantucket on a frigid January night.

Binns was honored in a ticker tape parade. His heroics were celebrated in film and in song. The world was his oyster.

And he couldn’t understand why.

“He was very confused by the honors that reached him at the end of this story, because he was just doing his job,” according to Virginia Utermohlen Lovelace, the granddaughter of “CQD Binns, the first hero of wireless.” (CQD was the distress call that preceded SOS.)

“The people who were in the boiler room of the Republic, who had to shut off all the boilers so the whole thing wouldn’t explode, those were the people that he thought were the real heroes.”

Lovelace was on hand for Guglielmo Marconi Weekend at the Cape Cod National Seashore’s Salt Pond Visitors Center in Eastham on April 21 during a screening of the PBS documentary, “Rescue at Sea,” which tells of the Republic sinking and rescue efforts.

She also unveiled the earliest copies of her grandfather’s book, “Dots and Dashes: Adventures at the Dawn of the Wireless Age,” with annotations by her. The book will be published by Lovelace this summer.

She recalled that her grandfather always managed to maintain his sense of humor, despite experiencing his share of tragedy.

Binns immediately began calling for improvements on the wireless front after the Republic sinking, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. A report written by Binns for Marconi was largely ignored. Binns even met President William Howard Taft, and explained his ideas. Some of his proposals were implemented, but not nearly enough.

Then the sinking of the Titanic happened. More than 1,500 people perished.

“The things that he recommended in the way that wireless was operated in 1909 after the Republic crash did not get enacted until after the Titanic,” Lovelace said. “He was so upset. He didn’t like to talk about it. He had this cloud over his head of this particular event.”

Binns happened to be a good friend of Edward Smith, captain of the Titanic. Smith wanted Binns on board for the Titanic’s maiden voyage, but when it came time to shove off, Binns was barred by White Star Line owner Joseph Bruce Ismay.

“When my granddad arrived in Liverpool, there was a message from Bruce Ismay saying that he did not want my grandfather on his ships, because he would bring bad luck and bad publicity,” Lovelace said.

That, Lovelace added, was the last straw.

“He had gotten disgusted with this whole business, and had also met my grandmother, so he decided to become a newspaper reporter,” she said. “He had to choose for his last trip across the ocean either the Minnewaska or the Titanic. He took the Minnewaska, because it was cheaper and the other reason was that it got to New York a couple of days earlier than the Titanic. His first big reporting job (for the Hearst-owned New York American) was the sinking of the Titanic that weekend.”

Lovelace said that her grandfather saw Marconi as “a thrill and a pain at the same time.” After her grandfather’s passing, she discovered that Marconi “twisted his arm” to work as a wireless operator at Luna Park at New York’s Coney Island. The Luna Park owner had created, before the Republic accident, a show about rescue at sea using wireless.

“Here was reality following art,” she said. “The guy wanted very much after the accident for Binnsy to be the wireless operator in his show. My grandfather said no, but Marconi forced him into it because Marconi wanted the advertising and was in big negotiations with some ships sailing in the Pacific. My granddad did this and was in the show all summer. It was a source of immense shame for him, I think. He did not want to commercialize people’s misery.

“He was so mad at Marconi — he never talked about it because it was so upsetting. He did not want to be made into a tin god.”

Lovelace has a picture of Binns receiving an award from Marconi, and “the expression on my grandfather’s face is priceless!” she said. “He does not look thrilled.”

Binns greatly encouraged the creation of radar, sonar and color TV, according to his granddaughter. He was also “a big proponent of women as wireless operators.” As a newspaper reporter and columnist, he often wrote about radio and science.

“He wrote a whole essay on ‘Why did this happen to me and what does this mean — what should I do about it? I’ve been given this gift of a voice. How do I turn it into something beneficial for the world?’” Lovelace concluded. “That’s what he worked on.”

For more information, visit jackbinns.org

Don Wilding, a writer and public speaker on Cape Cod lore, can be reached via email at donwilding@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter at @WildingsCapeCod. Shore Lore appears every other week.